Tag: flyby

Though on holiday, I wanted to share these images and a bit of the Juno at Jupiter news.

This composite image depicts Jupiter’s cloud formations as seen through the eyes of Juno’s microwave radiometer (MWR) instrument as compared to the top layer, a Cassini imaging science subsystem image of the planet. The MWR can see a couple of hundred miles into Jupiter’s atmosphere with the instrument’s largest antenna. The belts and bands visible on the surface are also visible in modified form in each layer below. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/GSFC)

Because telescopes have never been able to see clearly down through the thick clouds of Jupiters– the ones that together form the planet’s glorious stripes– it has remained a mystery how deep they may be.

Based on the Juno spacecraft’s August pass, we now know via its microwave radiometer that the stripes reflect dynamics that occur deep into the planet.

Scott Bolton, leader of the Juno mission reported the team’s conclusions during a press conference at the 2016 meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences.

“The structure of the zones and belts still exists deep down,” Bolton said. “So whatever is making those colors, whatever is making those stripes, is still existing pretty far down into Jupiter. That came as a surprise to many of the scientists. We didn’t know if this was [just] skin-deep.”

The new images penetrate to depths of about 200 to 250 miles below the surface cloud layer, Bolton said. While the bands seen on the cloud tops are not identical to the bands identified further down, there is a strong resemblance. “They’re evolving. They’re not staying the same,” Bolton said.

The findings have intriguing implications for exoplanet research. Bolton said that the hint at “the deep dynamics and the chemistry of Jupiter’s atmosphere. And this is the first time we’ve seen any giant planet atmosphere underneath its layers. So we’re learning about atmospheric dynamics at a very basic level.”

Outer jets and belts composed largely of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide gas can block study of the inner atmosphere. Winds blow the cloud regions in different directions. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

These early Juno findings came as it was also reported that the spacecraft had two malfunction that caused it to go into safe mode, just as it was approaching Jupiter for an October 19 flyby.

Right now, Juno makes one orbit every 53 days. Juno was scheduled to fire its engines on Oct.… Read more

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